British cinema was effectively shut out of the Cannes film festival with the announcement that no domestic titles are to feature in this year's competition.

Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart will premiere at the event but is not eligible for any prizes. The film stars Angelina Jolie as the widow of the murdered American journalist Daniel Pearl.

The festival opens on May 16 with a screening of My Blueberry Nights. Directed by Hong Kong film-maker Wong Kar Wai, the picture is billed as a romantic American road movie and marks the screen debut of singer Norah Jones.

Elsewhere, controversy looks likely to come courtesy of Michael Moore's Sicko, a documentary about the US health service, and Persepolis, an animated tale of Iran's Islamic revolution of 1979.

Favourites for the Palme d'Or award include Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, Emir Kusturica's Promise Me This, and No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel.

Quentin Tarantino, a previous Cannes winner with Pulp Fiction, returns with Death Proof, his section of the exploitation double-feature Grindhouse. Organisers claim the Cannes-approved edit of Death Proof will be significantly different from the version playing in the US.

Gilles Jacob, president of the festival, said organisers aimed to reinforce "a certain proud idea of cinema" with a programme that would combine "heritage and modernity". However, British directors must content themselves with a behind-the-scenes role, as Stephen Frears, director of The Queen, prepares to take his chair as president of the jury.